Bahini Darbar- The Local Newspaper

We all need newspaper to know what is happening in and around us. In villages it is a little difficult to reach out to all the places for even leading or local newspaper agencies.  A small village in Rewa, Madhya Pradesh had the problem but now they have made a newspaper, which is handwritten by some group of Dalit and Adivas women.

The paper used is an A4 size notebook sheet and consist of 10 pages. The newspaper is written in their local language Bageli and now they have their Radio station too.

The newspaper started from an argument because of the unfair treatment towards the Dalits of the society. The village in Rewa has less numbers of hand pumps for water supply and everyone has to stand in row to collect water. The Dalit’s have to wait in line but if an upper caste person comes then the Dalit have to move back and give them privilege.

One day a dalit stud up for her right and tried to complain to the authorities but even they did not help her. This unfair treatment towards the Dalit created a burning flame within the women to help themselves and the Dalit community. That was the beginning of Bahini Darbar. 

Photo Courtesy: Hindustan Times

Their main topic consist on Women's Rights, Domestic Violence, Child Rights, Health and land rights, Environmental Rights, and they have started Library for the underprivileged. 

Bahini Darbar is now a local newspaper of Rewa where only 12 women work for 15 days to release the newspaper and rest of the days they do their work to earn money for their living.

They roam around many villages to collect information or stories which are untold and kept in dark. Once the paper is ready a team of 3 go to villages to publish the paper. They travel by foot to each village they come across and give them copy of their newspaper to whoever has subscribed for it. 

The main distributor’s name is Gudia and the Editor of this newspaper Jamnavati has completed 12std. Nirmala being illiterate travels to villages to give newspaper and calls up a meeting for women to raise issues to solve them. 

This is the change which brought empowerment in the Dalit community and gave them a reason to take part in the society. Now in Rewa, no one shows the ill treatment towards the community.